Pieces by Patrick Heffernan

It was supposed to have been just another routine night for Mike Lowe, a newly-promoted sergeant working Homicide in the police department. But then the call came, the call that would forever change his life, and the lives of so many people surrounding him. An anonymous call reports that body parts are scattered all about a vacant house.

When the police enter the house, incendiary devices go off, killing more police on the scene. Suddenly, Lowe finds himself in command of a task force he barely feels qualified to lead. Among the prime suspects are a fundamentalist church and a high-ranking police captain in his very department. Lowe must find and stop these people before they stop him as the killers continue escalating their game …

With the warrant in hand, an officer checked the front door, found it unlocked, and opened it. “Jesus Motherfucking Christ,” the officer said. His name was Paul Morris. He was 22 years old and barely out of the academy. Indeed, his FTO (field training officer) had only signed off on him ten days before.

Lowe looked into the living room and groaned. He saw parts of bodies and four human heads at first glimpse.

“Okay, back out of here and let’s wait on the Crime Scene Unit to do their thing,” Lowe ordered. “I think this one is officially my case, Officer Morris.”

“Jesus, you’re welcome to it,” Morris said, and then darted to the porch railing and hurled a huge spew of vomit into the flowerbed before walking away on unsteady legs. Moments later the crime scene team arrived with a huge Dodge Sprinter van piloted by one member while four others arrived in an Expedition. They entered the home with cameras and began their task while Lowe waited.

But twenty minutes later the house exploded. A call from one disposable phone was placed to another disposable phone, but this was wired to a little transmitter that sent a signal to a dozen thermite devices scattered about the house, several conveniently centered near gas lines. The explosion and fire were cataclysmic. One CSU member near a second-floor window leapt from the window to the ground, breaking three vertebrae and sustaining a closed head injury on impact. Three others were killed in the explosion. The fifth, near the door, burst out of the door with his clothes ablaze, and two cops blasted at him with fire extinguishers while Knox got on the radio for two ambulances and for the Fire Department to send in the world.

I’m an author living in the Houston-Galveston area. My writing is, as you can see, eclectic, and I love what I do, so you’ll see plenty more from me in times to come.